


Top Dog

by ThayerKerbasy



Series: A Man and His Dog [5]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Episode: s10e07 Girls Girls Girls, Episode: s10e10 The Hunter Games, Episode: s10e14 The Executioner's Song, Episode: s10e16 Paint It Black, Episode: s10e17 Inside Man, Gen, Hellhounds, Juliet POV, Season/Series 10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-17
Updated: 2017-08-20
Packaged: 2018-12-02 23:40:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11519964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThayerKerbasy/pseuds/ThayerKerbasy
Summary: Crowley was away with Dean for far too long, but he's back now and Juliet thought that things would finally return to normal.  Unfortunately, Juliet's master doesn't seem like himself anymore.  To make matters worse, a new arrival threatens to change everything.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm trying something different this time. I'm not quite done writing this, but I've decided to share the first chapter for now. As I continue to make progress, I'll share more chapters. Rest assured, I have several chapters in reserve just waiting to be posted, but I'd like to gauge interest in this. Hang on to your kudos for now, just let me know what you think with a comment below.
> 
> As always, thank you to the wonderful [grey2510](http://archiveofourown.org/users/grey2510) for fixing all the things.
> 
> Tags will update when new chapters are added.

Ever since Juliet’s master had returned home, life had been different. At first it seemed the same — her master took her on hunts, played with her, allowed her to watch while he did throne room things — but she began to notice small differences. When he took her on hunts, he would unleash her on a target, then praise her when she returned, but his enthusiasm for the sport was gone. It was the same when he played with her, the same not-excitement that wanted her to have fun but couldn’t join in. Throne room things were even worse. Her master sometimes made beeping noises on his “phone” box thing while other demons were trying to talk to him. Sometimes he just stared at air. He never even read things before signing them. Juliet was worried.

It was because of beer/gunpowder/cars/magic Dean, Juliet was sure of it. Everything had been fine until mortal Dean became a demon, then her master had disappeared with him for long enough to make Juliet notice actual _time_ passing, and then he came back changed. It was enough to make her want to bite something.

The only times her master showed any interest in anything was when he got angry. Demons usually ended up a messy pile of dust and ash on the floor when he got angry, so it didn’t happen often, but a few had tempted fate and lost. So when a demon (smelling like road tar and freshly-possessed meat) showed up with a story about soul trading and a demon-killing witch, Juliet was prepared to watch him get exploded. Instead, her master actually got off his throne and asked questions. He ordered the demon (Gerald, apparently?) to put together teams of demons to hunt down the witch and capture her. It was the liveliest he had been since before he had gone away.

While road tar/fresh meat Gerald was gone, Juliet’s master went back to being distracted. Nothing Juliet had done so far had managed to help as much as the bumbling of one demon pup, so she decided to watch and learn. By the time the pup returned, her master was thoroughly bored again and more than willing to follow to see what his demons had brought back. Juliet followed them silently, using every stalking technique she knew to make certain nobody noticed her and ordered her to stay behind. As long as she had no orders, she was free to roam as she pleased. 

She caught up to her master and too-brightly-coloured Gerald on the way to the dungeons. The pup was explaining something about the Winchesters taking out Alpha Team, but Beta Team had something called a perimeter around a hotel and they got the witch. In the back of her head, Juliet couldn’t help thinking about the word “Winchesters”. It tickled a memory of some sort. She had no time to dwell on it though. Her quarry had stopped in front of a door and her master was yelling at the road tar/fresh meat demon. The pup had pretended to be a big dog and her master was having none of it.

The demon pup was sent away and her master opened the door, muttering insults with every step. Juliet peeked around the door, careful to avoid notice, but nobody was looking at her. The only place her master was looking was at the witch chained to the wall, and the witch didn’t seem to see anyone but Juliet’s master. Greatly daring, Juliet remained where she was, watching openly, and hoping her master didn’t turn around.

The witch smelled of magic and death and tea and the blood of her injuries, and though she smelled powerful, she didn’t see Juliet. She looked directly at Juliet’s master and said, “The king at last. King of what? Lilliput? I mean, I’d heard you were short, but…”

She chuckled, trailing off as Juliet’s master stared. Neither of them made a sound while they each tried to figure out the other, until the woman snapped, “Well? Get to it! Time for the coup de grace.” Tilting her head slightly, she smiled. “Wee boy, is something the matter with you? Cat got your tongue, hmm? Meow.”

Juliet was quite certain no cat had been allowed into Hell, or anywhere near her master. If it had, Juliet would have caught and eaten it, or at least chased it away. Still, her master was being unusually quiet in the face of such words. When he finally spoke, it was only one word. “Mother?”

The woman’s face changed dramatically; it was like all of the expression fell off, leaving only big eyes and slightly parted lips. She blinked, then pulled all of her scattered wits back in again. Juliet wished she knew how to read meat faces, but they weren’t expressive in a way that she understood. The witch leaned forward as much as her chains would allow, and asked, “Do I know you?”

Hesitating a moment, her master said, “Rowena. That’s your name, isn’t it? Rowena MacLeod?”

Drawing herself up to stand taller, the woman said, “And who precisely is asking?”

Her master’s voice was cold and clipped. “Your son.”

He then turned and left the room, leaving Juliet to scramble out of his way. She’d been spotted, no doubt about it. He waved a hand and the door slammed shut behind him, cutting off whatever questions the death and tea witch was shouting after him. Juliet could see the agitation roiling inside her master’s true form, so she trotted obediently alongside him, just far enough away so as not to bother him, but close enough to reassure. Juliet was a good dog, and even though she didn’t understand what a “mother” was, she would help her master sort through it.

The first thing her master did was to order his demons to trace the witch’s movements back, to find out as much about her as possible. They couldn’t find much, but they were able to confirm the woman’s identity and point out the bloody trail of bodies she had left in her wake. After that, he left her in the dungeon. He left orders to have her fed and kept alive and not tortured, but in the meantime, he seemed to be fighting with a lot of anger. Time passed, though it likely felt like more to the witch. Juliet watched from her bed in the throne room, carefully not drawing attention to herself.

Her master paced the throne room, Scotch in hand, ranting to road tar/fresh meat Gerald. “She was a horrible mother. Did I tell you about the time she almost traded me for three pigs? Three! I was an attractive child. I could juggle. I was worth five pigs at least.”

Juliet was forced to agree. Her master was worth infinitely more than three or even five pigs. In fact, Juliet wouldn’t have traded her master for any number of pigs. Once you had eaten all the pigs, you would be left with nothing, but a master who could hunt and play was something to have with you forever. Definitely better than pigs.

Hands clasped behind his back respectfully, Gerald said, "My ma used to burn me with cigarettes."

The look her master leveled at Gerald immediately made the pup stop talking. “Nobody cares, Gerald.” Reprimand delivered, he continued, “Don't get me started about the name. 'Fergus'. Sounds like a venereal disease, and not the fun kind."

Hellhounds couldn’t get diseases, so Juliet had never bothered to learn about them. Still, she had never heard of a ‘Fergus’ before. It was one of those things she didn’t have enough information to understand, so she let it go for now.

He sat on his throne and sighed. Gerald took that as his cue to approach a little closer. His black smoke form looked eager to please and eager to hunt, all at once. "Look boss, if you hate this betty so much, why not end her?"

Her master paused with his glass nearly at his lips, staring Gerald down. "I have my reasons."

Even Juliet could understand her master’s intent that time without looking at his true form. Apparently the demon pup was too eager to hunt, though, because he stood taller, pursed his lips a bit, then smiled and said, "Oh, I killed my old lady. Because of the cigarettes. I have no problem doing yours."

Though Juliet didn’t understand the significance of eyes closed, lips compressed thinly, and taking a deep breath, she understood her master’s flat tone of voice when he finally said, “Duly noted. I’ll be sure to let you know if I want to take you up on that. In the meantime, I do believe I’ll grant her an audience. Go on and fetch the bitch for me, Gerald.” Gerald was almost to the door by the time her master clarified, “Alive and unharmed.”

By the time Gerald returned, guiding the witch by one arm, Juliet’s master had composed himself. He sat on his throne, Scotch in hand, waiting, so when they arrived, he said simply, “Mother.”

To which the witch responded with a smile, “Fergus.”

That seemed to irritate her master. Whatever a Fergus was, he didn’t like being called that. “Crowley,” he corrected.

The witch allowed a brief silence before repeating, “Fergus.”

That, at least, made him laugh a small laugh. Juliet didn’t understand what was funny about that, but she had no time to puzzle it out before her master continued, "So you haven't changed."

The witch smiled and Gerald left her there, walking out and closing the doors behind him. Without him there, the witch woman stood more relaxed when she answered, "But you certainly have. King of Hell. Bravo. I always knew my boy was meant for big things."

 _Her_ boy? The King of Hell, Juliet’s master, wasn’t a boy and he didn’t belong to anyone, let alone a witch who smelled like magic and death and nasty dungeon filth. Juliet decided then and there that she didn’t like the Rowena witch.

Apparently her master didn’t like the witch’s notions either. "Really? As I remember it, you said I would die in a gutter, covered in my own sick."

The witch raised her chin and closed her eyes, then made calculated eye contact. "I was motivating you to do better. Aim higher. And clearly, it worked."

The look her master leveled at the Rowena woman was one Juliet had seen him give to demons who had not tried hard enough. It was his “are you seriously asking me to believe that?” look.

The woman looked like she was thinking quickly, then asked, “How _did_ you die?”

The smile melted off her master’s face. "The point is, you hated me."

The witch’s eyes rolled up in a way that still made Juliet envious. One day, just once, Juliet wanted to roll her eyes too, but glowing red light wasn’t a thing that could be rolled. She almost missed the, “Oh, please,” that the Rowena woman said.

Leaning forward on his throne, her master frowned and raised his voice. “You said you'd be back in a flash, and then you disappeared! I was eight years old! Eight!"

She could disappear, too? Juliet looked closer, but the witch still appeared to be a human.

The witch raised her voice, too. "Oh now you're being dramatic."

"I didn't even have a father!"

"Of course you had a father. You were just conceived during a winter solstice orgy. And it's not like I was taking names.” Her master shrank down a little and sat back on his throne. The woman’s voice got softer. “What do you want me to say? I had a... disagreement with the locals, and when they set their hounds on me, I had to leave."

Well, at least that made sense. Juliet didn’t pretend to understand any of the mother and father business, but if the woman had been running from ‘hounds, it made sense that she couldn’t stop for anything. What puzzled Juliet was why the witch woman was still alive. No one could hide from hellhounds forever — Juliet prided herself on having never failed to catch her prey — so if the Rowena person had been hunted when her master was a pup, she should have been killed and her soul delivered to Hell long ago.

"And never come back? For hundreds of years?"

Hundreds? The witch had evaded pursuit for hundreds of years? Juliet mentally reevaluated her opinion of the witch’s power.

"But I'm here now.” Her voice got soft. It was like nothing Juliet had ever heard before. “We have a second chance. We can be a real family again, Fergus."

Anger flared in her master’s true form, dark red. He growled when he spoke. “Crowley. And I have a family."

The woman laughed. "Who? The demons?” The laughter left her voice as quickly as it had come. “Any one of them would stab you in the back if they thought they could get away with it."

She was probably right about that, but that’s what Juliet was for. It was her job to watch her master’s back and make sure nobody stabbed it. And Juliet was a good dog. Her master would not be stabbed in the back, or even in the front.

Her master’s voice was soft in that cold, calm way he got when he was waiting for someone to say the wrong thing. "And you wouldn't?"

The woman’s voice got louder again, and Juliet wanted to fold down her ears. "No! Because we're family! We're blood! You can trust me, and I can help you.” 

Juliet didn’t understand the smiling head shake her master did, or the raised eyebrows, but his true form told a very conflicting story. She didn’t like what this woman’s words were doing to him.

Stepping forward for the first time since she entered the throne room, the woman climbed the stairs to stand beside the throne — on the opposite side from Juliet, otherwise she would have exercised her established privilege to bite the woman’s leg. The awful woman spoke as she moved. “I understand you're angry. I understand that you... hate me. And if you want to keep me locked away, then so be it. But know that I'll always be your mother." She paused and touched Juliet’s master’s face, from which he flinched away. "And I'll always love you." 

Leaning in with those words, the witch pressed her lips to Juliet’s master’s forehead, then straightened up again. There was a frown on her master’s face and he sat in silence while his true form was overcome with too much to express. Juliet was beginning to consider maybe barking to break the silence, but then her master clapped his hands twice and called out, “Gerald!”

The witch looked around, eyes wide, as the doors opened once more. Road tar/fresh meat Gerald returned, a smile on his face as he approached. “What can I do for you, boss?”

Though his insides were in turmoil, her master’s face was carefully blank. “Take her back to her cell.”

The strange witch woman made screeching protests, but Gerald grabbed hold of her and dragged her away. Her master followed, and because nobody had ordered otherwise, so did Juliet. She knew her wonderful master would never permit someone to treat him like that. Idly, she wondered if Juliet would be allowed to rip the woman’s soul out and deliver it to the torture demons, since it was obviously so long overdue.

The walk to the dungeons was long and loud. Juliet finally succumbed and flattened her ears to her head in an attempt to block out some of the woman’s screeching. Gerald dragged the witch along, stumbling and sobbing, down the stairs. It really was a pathetic sight, and Juliet had seen her share of pathetic sights in her time.

Road tar/fresh meat Gerald flung the door open and threw the witch back into her cell. Rowena witch’s protests got much smaller and squeakier once she was inside, though when Gerald was about to chain her to the wall again, she cried, “Stop!” Breathing heavy, she continued, “I know who's been smuggling souls up from Hell."

“Really.” Her master’s voice was flat. “Pray do tell.”

The witch accused Gerald and the other prisoner in the cell confirmed the accusation. It was all very boring, typical Hell stuff, until Gerald slammed the Rowena witch against the wall and began to squeeze her throat. Juliet approved of his technique, but the proper way would have been to use his teeth. Such a pity mortal meatsuit mouths were so small.

For whatever reason, Juliet’s master disapproved of Gerald’s treatment of the witch. Personally, Juliet agreed with Gerald, but he was ordered to stop and didn’t, which was where her sympathies ended. He was a disobedient pup, and Juliet was tempted to bite his nose. Fortunately, her master stabbed him in the back of the head with an angel knife thing. It was times like those that made Juliet wish she could be properly understood. She very much wanted to tell the witch, “See? Nobody stabs him in the back. He’s the one who does the stabbing.”

Her master turned to leave, and the witch quietly thanked him. Okay, so at least she was polite. He reached the door, then stopped and asked, “Coming?”

He then kept walking without waiting to see if she followed, but of course she did. Juliet’s master was smart. The witch woman followed until the other prisoner whispered at her, “Rowena! You said that if I lied you'd get me out of here."

The witch stopped at the door and said, "Oh and I will, darlin'. I'll be back in a flash."

She then closed the door, leaving the other prisoner and Gerald’s meat body in the cell together. On one paw, Juliet thought it was nice that the prisoner was being left with fresh meat, but on the other paw, they had lied. No wonder road tar/fresh meat Gerald had been so angry. He really should have used his teeth. Juliet silently padded after the King of Hell and the Rowena witch who had made his life so much more complicated, and she wondered if this was better or worse than when he was staring into empty air.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for patiently waiting for chapter two. I hope everyone decided to come back for more.

After the Rowena woman was released from her cell, life became more difficult for Juliet. The first thing her master had done was to forbid Juliet from harming the witch. He hadn’t gone so far as to say she should protect the woman, but it was still frustrating to know she would be unable to bite if it turned out the Rowena woman was the threat that Juliet thought she might be. Not to mention, it meant that when the witch tripped over Juliet, she wasn’t allowed to give a warning bite. No, it meant that Juliet was expected to move out of the way so that the “Mother” could spend more time directly beside the throne. It was humiliating.

It didn’t take long for magic/death/tea Rowena to get comfortable. She had her own room, but she was only there when her son — and it took Juliet several repetitions of that word to realize it applied to her master — ordered her out, or when she needed to sleep. She should have been terrified of being in the palace of the King of Hell, surrounded by demons, but instead she had taken over Juliet’s place.

Still, it was possible to think that the woman might have meant well. She spoke kind words and always seemed to be trying to offer her help. At least, that’s what it seemed like when her master stared off into space like he always used to, but his eyes were too focused and he started to sweat. He had never been sweaty in his palace before. The reason he left Hell so often was because it was too cold.

The Rowena witch got right up close to him and said, “Son?” Then when nothing changed, she shouted, “Fergus!”

That startled him out of whatever it was. It was probably smart thinking to use the word he didn’t like. That would be guaranteed to get his attention, even if it might have made him angry. Juliet reluctantly admired the witch’s thinking.

When he wasn’t staring into nothing anymore, the Rowena witch softly asked, “What’s the matter?”

Juliet’s master quickly replied, “Nothing.”

Even though he wasn’t doing the strange thing anymore, the woman continued to stay close, keeping both hands on the throne and leaning in. Her voice was full of a concern that Juliet wasn’t sure she felt. “Nothing? You're soaked in the horror sweat. Haven't seen that since the plague years. Darlin', what can I do?"

He stood and took a few steps away from her, muttering, "Not a thing, you evil bitch."

Juliet couldn’t help it; she cocked her head to one side and examined the Rowena witch again. No, she was still a human, not a dog. Perhaps her master had meant to say witch instead.

Magic/death/tea Rowena repeated, "Not a thing, you evil bitch, _Mother_."

Alright, no, the Rowena witch had also heard bitch. Juliet bristled at the thought of being compared to her. There was no way Juliet was going to allow this newcomer to take her place as head bitch. Not without a fight.

Her master kept walking and didn’t even look back as he said, "Let's not get too cozy just yet."

Juliet was prepared to follow after him immediately, but something prompted her to wait. Being a dog, she always trusted her instincts, so she remained still so as not to make a sound. 

The Rowena witch chuckled until the door closed, then immediately stopped. She reached down and took a purple thing out from the bottom of her master’s throne. It was one of the magic bag things her master sometimes used! Magic/death/tea Rowena made a strange face in the direction of the door, then kissed the bag thing.

Without knowing what the bag thing was for, Juliet couldn’t know why it was there, but it was obvious the Rowena witch had put it there in the first place. Juliet needed to warn her master that the witch woman was doing magic on his throne. She shifted to the shadows and chased after her master’s scent, catching up with him outside his office. Rather than wait for him to acknowledge her arrival, she barked once for his attention, then gave the familiar series of yips that was their code for a threat not in the room.

He furrowed his brow, considering her warning. “Someone in my palace is plotting against me? Is that it?”

She gave her confirmation bark and he gave her his full attention. “Is it one of my demons? Someone in the court?”

What a frustrating form of communication. He was usually so good about knowing what she meant, she sometimes forgot that he couldn’t truly understand her. She snarled and growled through his guesses until he finally said, “Is it my mother? Rowena?”

Amid a flood of relief, she barked to confirm his guess. Finally, with that out in the open, maybe she would be allowed to tear out the witch’s soul and take it to Hell, or at least chase her out of the palace.

What happened instead was a weird little lurch in her master’s true form while his face made a thin-lipped smile. He patted her head and scratched behind her ears. “Thank you, Juliet. You’re such a good dog. I know it must be confusing, but Rowena is always plotting something. It’s probably some ploy to gain access to power or riches or some such.”

Juliet couldn’t believe her ears. Her master was refusing to heed her warning? Concerned, she whined and paced the space around him. Surely he would change his mind if she gave him a moment to think it over.

He sighed. “I’m not discounting whatever you thought you saw, I’m merely being realistic. If it will make you feel better, I promise I’ll have someone keep an eye on her.”

It was probably the best she was going to get. Juliet offered her paw for her master to shake. Still, she needed to enlist someone else who understood. If her master wasn’t going to take her seriously, she would need help from someone who would believe her.

\- - - 

The meat/smoke/fur smell of the kennel was fresher in her mind than it had been before. The memories had been almost overwhelming last time. Familiarity had eased those memories into place and made the kennel into somewhere safe. During her previous stay, she had felt abandoned, but kennel master Connall had made her feel welcome. 

Juliet had barely emerged from the shadows before she was bowled over by a charging pack of half-grown ‘hounds. Bodies sprawled atop her, keeping her pinned, while teeth playfully nipped at her throat and tail. One, greatly daring, batted at her nose.

She allowed the pups their triumph, just for a brief moment. They weren’t going to hurt her and they deserved to feel good for their successful ambush. Patiently waiting until they were sure of their victory, Juliet bunched her muscles and surged out from under the pack. The pups yelped in surprise and scattered, some melting into the shadows of nearby rocks, others tripping over their own feet before reforming as a slightly smaller pack.

Free for the moment, Juliet leapt to the top of a rock that she knew was too big for the pups to scale. From a higher vantage point, it was much easier to locate the kennel master. His leather/ash/raw meat scent reached her nose moments before she managed to spot him at the far end of the kennel. From there it was pup’s play to melt into the nearest shadow and cross the space to find him.

Kennel master Connall was tending to the fires that provided the kennel’s shadows. Soot and ash coated him from head to toe, making his rich earth-toned skin look grey. Flesh forms were so fragile, but the kennel master protected his meat with leather coverings and something tougher covered his hands. Unlike most demons — but very like Juliet’s master — he took good care of his meatsuit.

Careful to approach him from the front, Juliet padded over to leather/ash/raw meat Connall. She crouched just enough to admit that she accepted his superiority. It never hurt to flatter when one came asking for help.

The kennel master disposed of another collection of ash from the fire, then smiled at Juliet and set down his tools. “Always a pleasure to see you again, though I hadn’t thought I would see you so soon. I can’t imagine you’re here to visit the pups, so what brings you to my kennel?”

Juliet went through the same series of question and answer as she had with her master. Danger, traitor, not a demon, but then he hit on it. “I’ve heard tell that His Majesty’s mother is around.”

Without waiting for him to finish his thought, she barked a confirmation, then repeated her signal for danger. Leather/ash/raw meat Connall told her to stay. He left, went to the storerooms, and returned dangling a mouse by the tail. Setting it down on the floor, he released it and said, “Good dog, Juliet. Go hunt your treat.”

It was hardly anything like a proper hunt, but that didn’t matter. It was praise and a reward. Juliet let the mouse run, then chased after it, jumping from shadow to shadow. The pups tried to get in on her hunt, but she snarled and snapped at them to warn them off. When the tiny thing had crossed the room, Juliet snatched it up in her jaws and crunched. The hot tang of blood burst across her tongue and the juices ran down her throat.

She left the remnants for the pups to nose at, then returned to the kennel master. His face wasn’t smiling when he petted her. His eyebrows drew together and he asked, “So, the alpha bitch who whelped your master has returned to him, and you think she means him harm?”

Her confirmation bark made his lips compress. Elsewhere in the room, half-grown hellhound pups were fighting over a chewed mouse carcass. He scratched behind her ears. “ _You_ are a good dog, Juliet. You do your master proud.”

Juliet was glad of the praise, but praise didn’t help to protect her master. She cocked her head to one side and waited for him to say more. Kennel master Connall stroked her fur and continued, “Of course you have been forbidden to hurt her. If you did, you would be the one punished and she would be more trusted than before. And if your master won’t heed your warnings, he certainly wouldn’t listen to me.”

It certainly sounded hopeless when he put it like that. What hope was there, then? Juliet whimpered her dismay, but leather/ash/fresh meat Connall said, “Oh, don’t give up just yet. If you can’t hurt her, and your master won’t make her leave, that makes your choice clear, don’t you think? You have to convince her to want to leave. You must chase her away.”

Oh. Oh! Hellhounds were built for chasing prey, and while she was meant to catch and kill, she was also meant to strike fear into the hearts of mortals. This was a thing she could do!

Tail wagging, she bumped her head against his chest. The ash coating his skin rubbed off onto her fur, but she didn’t care. Together, they laid out a plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I meant to update earlier, but I had to wait for the points to be tallied for Coldest Hits. Good news is, I won! Thank you to everyone who didn't click that kudos button. I get to choose next month's theme, so it should be fun. From here on out, unless something delays me, I should most likely be posting a new chapter on Sundays.
> 
> If you enjoyed what you read, please leave a comment to tell me what you thought. I love hearing from you all. Thanks for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, and happy Sunday. I hope you all enjoy the rest of s10e10.

With a plan in place, Juliet was left to wait for the right moment. In the meantime, magic/death/tea Rowena enjoyed an increasingly worrying amount of freedom. Nobody watched her as closely as Juliet did, so nobody saw what Juliet saw.

Most of the demons were laughing amongst themselves, saying such things as, “I always knew the king was soft, but I didn’t think he’d bring his mommy to work with him,” and “Crowley’s lost his touch. Any one of us could do better,” and “That witch bitch has His Majesty wrapped around her little finger.”

That last one confused Juliet. Every time she looked, her master wasn’t wrapped around anything, nor did the witch have anything around her finger. She was left to conclude that the demon had been mistaken, probably because he wasn’t watching like Juliet was.

Her opportunity came after her master had to leave. He talked to his talking “phone” box to someone he called Squirrel, then told the witch person that he had to leave. Tea witch seemed more worried about dinner than anything else, then muttered about not even getting a goodbye. But then, the traitorous thing got a sharp cutting thing out of a drawer and cut one of her master’s cloth collar things.

Inwardly, Juliet seethed. Magic/death/tea Rowena had been treated nicely, but as soon as she was alone, she did Bad Things. If she were a pup, Juliet would bite her nose to teach her to stop, but Juliet had been forbidden to bite. Something else would have to be done instead.

Invisible and silently lurking in the corner of the throne room, Juliet watched as the witch balanced bones together in a bowl to build a sort of bone bird with strips of the cloth collar thing for its wings. While sprinkling something around the bone bird, she said, “Wings of Titania, bear mine eyes aloft as I bid thee…”

Juliet cringed away instinctively from the fire that flared up out of nowhere. The Rowena witch had tossed the rest of the stuff in her hand into the bowl, which somehow made a flash of fire. When Juliet thought it safe to look again, the witch was looking up, her mouth open and her eyes white like smoke. Maybe the smoke went into her eyes? Some demons had white eyes, but it was easy to see that the witch was still just a mortal witch.

Then she remembered. Her master sometimes paid witches to work for him, and one had done a seeing spell that made her eyes white. If it was the same, Juliet would be able to do what she needed to do without worry of being discovered.

The Rowena witch’s bag rested on the floor beside her, still open, so Juliet crept forward and stuck her face in the bag. Inside was a trove of tiny bones, little bottles, tree roots, and so many other assorted things for making magic. She didn’t hesitate, the tiny bones crunching between her teeth easily.

The tree roots were just as easily chewed, though they didn’t taste as good as the bones had. There wasn’t much she could do with the bottles, but she gathered as many as she could in her mouth and took them back to the kennel, where she dropped them into a fire. It might take a long time for them to burn, but they eventually would.

As soon as that was done, she dashed off to find leather/ash/fresh meat Connall. He took one look at her and immediately left for the storeroom. When he returned, he held a squeaking rat, which he offered to Juliet. She snatched it up in her jaws, killing it quickly without the usual hunt. Then, without a wasted moment, she rushed back to the throne room.

Fortunately, magic/death/tea Rowena was still doing her magic searching. Juliet gleefully chewed the rat a few more times, then dropped its still-twitching corpse into the witch’s magic bag. Blood oozed over the bag’s remaining contents, chunks of flesh and fur fell loose to the bottom of the bag, and the smell of death wafted through the room. Proud of herself, Juliet hid in a corner of the room, invisible to mortal eyes, and settled in to wait.

She didn’t have to wait long. The smoke cleared from magic/death/tea Rowena’s eyes and the witch smiled. Whatever she had seen pleased her, which couldn’t mean anything good. She carefully disassembled the bone bird and moved to put the pieces back into her bag, but stopped abruptly and yelped a little squeak.

From her corner, Juliet watched eagerly. Mortals were so strange about dead things, her plan was practically guaranteed to work. The witch’s upper lip twitched. She set the bones aside and reached into the bag, taking the rat out by its tail and setting it in the bowl where the bone bird had been. Then, she said a word, loud and powerful, and the meat fell away from the bones. With delicate care, she plucked the bones she wanted out of the mess and placed them one by one into her bag, then repacked the remnants of the bone bird. Finally, she picked up the bowl and tossed the meat and fur into the corner opposite Juliet.

Setting the bowl back on the table, the witch then called out in a piercing voice, “Guthrie!”

As much as she wanted to see what came next, Juliet couldn’t stay. Guthrie could see her, and he already had cause to dislike her. Given the choice, Juliet wasn’t sure which side he would choose. Disappointed, she left to report her failure to Connall.

_ _ _

Though she still had her doubts, kennel master Connall reassured Juliet that a powerful witch wouldn’t be chased away by one unfortunate incident. Together, they worked out what to do next. Connall expressed frustration at not being able to help more, but he had to stay in the kennels while Juliet was free to roam the palace invisibly. Juliet understood.

While she was waiting for her next opportunity, interesting things happened. After sorting out a new plan, Juliet returned to keep watch on the witch. She arrived in the throne room to find magic/death/tea Rowena _sitting in Juliet’s master’s throne_. It took all of her willpower to resist the urge to snarl and tear the unwelcome creature to shreds.

Instead of protecting her master’s honour, Juliet focused on finding a good hiding place. She had to be hidden from anyone who might give away her location to her quarry. A glance around the room revealed many hiding places for smaller creatures, but very little for one of her size. Taking great care not to let her nails click on the stone floor, Juliet crept across the room and took up a position directly behind the throne. She wouldn’t be able to see much, but she could listen undetected and unimpeded.

The nasty witch stretched and sighed in a way that sounded as if it might have been contented, but it was hard to tell, having seen and heard so little contentment before. Juliet was spared from having to decide by the sound of the door opening and someone clearing their throat. She double checked her hiding place while the Rowena witch turned her stretch into an excuse for being on the throne. It was a bad excuse, and it didn’t stop Juliet from wanting to bite her.

The voice was Guthrie’s and he claimed to have something meant for the king. That wasn’t unusual. Much as Juliet disliked Guthrie, she had to admit, he was unfailingly devoted. If he wasn’t a demon, Guthrie might have made a good ‘hound.

The Rowena witch stood and walked away from the throne, her footsteps moving towards Guthrie’s voice. As she walked, she spoke. “You have demonstrated unimpeachable loyalty, Guthrie. You, more than any, deserve this reward from a grateful monarch.”

It felt odd to hear her thoughts about Guthrie come out of the nasty witch’s mouth. Juliet was considering that oddness when she heard the unmistakable sound of an angel knife-thing killing a demon. She remembered it well. The last time she had heard that sound was when her master had killed perfume and fear Lola.

Guthrie screamed as he died and the Rowena witch said, “Don’t screw with me, sycophant.”

From behind the throne, Juliet was torn. While she and Guthrie had often been at odds, they belonged to the same pack. She wanted to go and tear out his killer’s throat, but she had been forbidden.

Then, from across the room, came that familiar voice Juliet loved. “ _What_ in _hell_?”

The traitorous witch’s voice immediately changed from gloating to upset. “Exactly! What in the hell is going on in Hell?! You said Guthrie was one of your best, your most trusted, and...and yet I found him inciting unrest amongst the court.”

He...what? Those were false words! Juliet didn’t even hear what her master said to that, but she heard the witch speak again.

“Can’t it? He...he said you were colluding with someone called _Winchester_? Y-yes? And that you were going to fetch him— oh, oh, what was it? The First Blade, which could kill us all. He said he got it first because you couldn’t be trusted. Naturally, I confronted him, and— “ Her sobs sounded false even to Juliet. “He attacked me. I had no choice.”

Juliet clamped her jaws together and laid down atop her paws. She would not disobey her master. Everyone knew her master wasn’t a dog and he didn’t fetch anything. That was her job. Surely he would see through such awful lies.

“I had a vision of Guthrie attacking me.”

What? How? It seemed impossible, but her master wouldn’t lie about such things. It hadn’t happened the way the Rowena witch had said, though. Resisting the urge to whimper, Juliet buried her nose between her paws and forced herself to listen to the rest.

“A prophecy. I am an interpreter of signs,” said the nasty liar, already calm and composed again.

“It’s not possible.” He didn’t want to believe what the witch was saying, but it sounded like he was nearly convinced. Perhaps more importantly though, a familiar smell cut through the words. The magic bone knife that Juliet had tracked around the world was in the room with them. Was _that_ the First Blade?

“I know, sonny. And yet— “

“How could he have known?”

It wasn’t like her master to be so willfully stupid. He was normally the first one to spot people lying to him. He wasn’t usually so easily fooled. There was something wrong with her master.

“Spies everywhere,” the witch replied. “I did try to warn you. Fergus, these Winchesters he mentioned, they’re not the _hunter_ Winchesters, are they? Because they, too, can be a great danger for us. I mean, today we got lucky, but tomorrow, who knows? Who is there left for you to trust?”

Silence hung in the air between them, but Juliet knew the answer. The Rowena witch was trying to make herself into the only one he could trust. Luckily, Juliet knew some other things, too. Those words reminded her that there were other people her master trusted. More importantly, the witch still didn’t know about Juliet.

Eventually, the Rowena witch left. She said she needed her beauty sleep. Juliet didn’t know what sleep had to do with beauty, but Juliet also didn’t understand what beauty was. She had heard the word used to describe pictures on the wall, a human soul, and even someone’s torturing techniques once. It was too hard to piece together what those things had to do with sleep, though, so she ignored the word altogether.

With the witch gone, it was finally safe for Juliet to creep out from her hiding place and curl up on her bed. Hopefully her master would think she had been there the whole time. He claimed his place on his throne, the magic bone knife in one hand. With the other, he got out his “phone” thing and worked whatever magic made it contact someone.

“Squirrel, I’ve got it,” he said into the little box. It made Juliet wonder, again, who “Squirrel” was. Squirrels couldn’t talk like demons and humans could, so would have nothing to say to a magic talking box like a “phone”. But whoever it was, they wanted the magic bone knife that her master held. Juliet felt a particular connection to it after the distance she had traveled to track it down, so she wanted to know who “Squirrel” might be.

The Squirrel on the other side said something, and then Juliet’s master said, “Of course, I’m gonna hang onto it until you work out how to get that thing off your arm.”

Apparently that was the end of the conversation, which left Juliet with more questions than before. Who was Squirrel? Why did they want the magic bone knife? Most importantly, what was on Squirrel’s arm? Juliet felt fairly confident that she could remove just about anything from someone’s arm with her teeth, though if it was a fellow hellhound attached to someone’s arm, she couldn’t do anything unless she was ordered. They were questions that were too difficult to answer without proper information, so reluctantly, she settled in to wait some more. Juliet had a lot of practice with waiting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, I love to hear from you. Let me know what you thought in a comment. Chapter 4 will post next Sunday.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last week's chapter was somewhat short. I have a much longer one for you all this week. I give to you s10e14 in full.
> 
> UPDATE: This chapter now contains beautiful artwork thanks to [dmsilvis](https://dmsilvisart.tumblr.com/). I highly encourage you to click that link and go see the other things dmsilvis has drawn. It's all gorgeous!

Going back and forth between the kennel and the palace meant traveling between Hell and the World Above. Among other things, one of the major differences was the passage of time. While in the palace, Juliet meticulously learned the Rowena witch’s habits, tracking her like any other prey, except that she was unable to injure her quarry.

For the most part, the Rowena witch stayed with Juliet’s master, claiming a need to “make up for lost time”. This was doubly true for audiences in the throne room. The nasty creature never missed one and never left before they were over. Once Juliet realized that, she was able to put the next phase of her plan into action.

Audiences had just begun. The line of petitioners was out the door and down the hall. Unless something happened to cut things short, Juliet would have more than enough time to accomplish the task before her. Double-checking that everyone was staying put, she dashed off to the kennel to fetch backup.

There were any number of other hellhounds who would have happily helped her cause, but only one was bound by the same bonds of loyalty as Juliet herself. Passing by the pack of pups, she followed the familiar smells to a far corner of the kennel. As close as he could be to the fire while still laying in a shadow was the most ancient ‘hound Juliet had ever met personally. Of course there were rumours of the First ‘Hound, but those were only stories.

There was grey fur around his muzzle and his joints were stiff if he didn’t rest in a warm place, but Brutus was still a fierce ‘hound capable of taking down even the largest prey. The fire in his eyes had not dimmed in the slightest. He had been their master’s first ‘hound trained from a pup and he had experience that Juliet envied. According to Connall, Brutus had once tracked and caught three witches in one night, and had carried all three souls to Hell at once.

It wasn’t until Juliet came into his field of view that he lifted his head. It was something she had discovered while trying to get him to play with her as a pup, and was the first real mystery she had ever pieced together. The reason he never hunted for their master anymore was because Brutus had lost his sense of smell.

He might have been incapable of tracking a damned soul now, but he was still a formidable fighter, and one worthy of respect. Juliet approached him slumped low with her ears back to acknowledge his status in their pack. Ears perked up, Brutus slowly got to his feet. Social niceties observed, Juliet barked a call to action. He knew the plan, had been there when she and Connall had hashed out the next step, and had been awaiting her signal. Together, they raced through the shadows, crossing the barrier between Hell and the World Above like parting a curtain.

[ ](https://imgur.com/1p8MIlc)

They materialized in the hallway outside of magic/death/tea Rowena’s room. While the shadows allowed for faster travel, it still didn’t allow them to pass through solid objects. Walls and doors were still an obstacle. It was a problem that Connall had accounted for in the plan, but Juliet had her doubts. She glanced from the door to Brutus and back. There was still time to try to find someone. Most demons could be persuaded to help her if she asked with her eyes.

Tail held high, Brutus approached the door. He lifted his right forepaw and brought it down firmly on the door handle, then shoved at the door with his body. It hardly seemed possible, but without opposable thumbs, Brutus had opened the door.

Juliet tried not to stare, but this changed everything. How many doors had kept her from her assigned quarry? How many times had she been forced to jump through a window to reach her prey? Mentally, she vowed to find as many different doors as possible so she could practice trying to open them all. Of course, they wouldn’t all be possible without thumbs, but some would. It was a life altering discovery.

From inside the room, Brutus growled softly. Right, limited time. Juliet softly padded into the room and nudged the door until it was _almost_ closed, then looked around the room. It was incredibly tempting to launch straight into their mission, but some steps were too important to skip.

To one side of the door were various things for people to sit on. To the other side, was a small table with bottles of liquids, and past that was a great big bed. Straight ahead was a clothing storage thing with mirrors on it. Underfoot was a colourful soft thing. The air was full of the smells of the Rowena witch, but underlying those was the metallic tang of dried blood.

Following her nose, Juliet tracked the blood to one of the little bottles, to the side of the clothing storage thing, and to a little box under the bed, the latter two being witchy symbols. Brutus took one look at those symbols and quietly barked the code for danger. Right then, she wouldn’t touch those things.

They divided the room between them, Brutus taking the seating area and Juliet handling the bed. With teeth and claws, they bit and shredded anything that wasn’t marked. It took very little time to render the furniture to a pile of broken sticks and cloth, topped with shards of broken glass and soaked with whatever had been in the bottles. Then, with nothing left to destroy, Brutus nosed at the edge of the door until he could wedge it open.

Juliet peeked over Brutus’ head into the hallway. There was still no one out there, but she could hear voices in the distance. Not wasting a moment, they squeezed out into the hallway, then Juliet pulled the door shut with her teeth. It took a few tries to pull it shut without the handle slipping, but it eventually clicked shut.

Brutus moved to the nearest pool of shadow and faded from view, Juliet close behind him. With the sound of footsteps approaching, the pair raced off through the shadows and back to the kennel. Brutus looked younger than he had in ages, and Juliet wished she could come up with more ways for him to feel useful. Every dog needed a job.

_ _ _

Leaving Brutus in Connall’s capable hands, Juliet returned to the palace as soon as she was able. She needed to see for herself the state of the court in the wake of their daring sabotage. Avoiding the Rowena witch’s room for the moment, Juliet first ran to the throne room.

What she found was not at all what she had expected. The smells hit her before she was even close. Demon smoke and fear and freshly-spilled demon blood hung in the air. Someone was dead, but she didn’t know who until she rounded the final corner. Nailed to the doors of the court were the coagulating remains of a crossroads demon she had seen a handful of times.

He wasn’t a demon she knew very well — he had only been in that particular meatsuit for a little while — but he had never been cruel, to her knowledge. He could have had the misfortune to cross his king in a bad mood, but then he would have only been reduced to smoke and ash. No, it looked like he had been torn apart and left as an example.

That’s when it hit her. That crossroads demon had been blamed for her sabotage. He didn’t have to be proven guilty, or even involved, just killed as a deterrent. The Rowena witch had gained so much influence over Juliet’s master that she could order someone killed just to discourage people from troubling her. She couldn’t possibly have known who had destroyed her wood and cloth things, but she could have someone killed anyway.

It was an awful thought. Nobody was safe from the horrible witch. Juliet’s one consolation was that the Rowena witch didn’t know about ‘hounds, so she couldn’t target Brutus or any of the pups. But thinking about the ‘hounds led to thinking about leather/ash/fresh meat Connall. The witch could order Connall’s death if she happened to see him!

Juliet didn’t know if Connall ever left the kennels, but she couldn’t let him be killed for such a cowardly reason. She also couldn’t just stay in the kennels and guard Connall for however long it took for the witch to leave. She would have to take matters into her own paws.

Tracking down the Rowena witch would not have been overly difficult, but since she had to go through the King to order anyone killed, Juliet opted to follow her rock solid connection to her master. She could happily stay with her master at all times, and she would be right there to hear about it if the witch asked for Connall’s death. If that happened, she could figure out a way to deal with it then.

She tracked down her master in one of the palace’s many hallways. He was talking with magic/death/tea Rowena and his true form was a chaotic mess of emotions that Juliet didn’t have names for. He both wanted and didn’t want the Rowena witch to stay. It was too much for Juliet to understand.

When she was close enough to hear, the first words she heard were from the witch. “Of course I was manipulating you! I am _your_ mother, after all. Manipulation’s who we are. Oh. My wee sausage, what matter is it that I had a motive? We had fun today, didn’t we?”

The Rowena put her hands on his meat form’s face when she called him a wee sausage. Juliet had to restrain herself from growling. The nasty thing had no business touching him. For that matter, sausages were for eating and her master was not a sausage.

More importantly, the witch had admitted to manipulating Juliet’s master. Juliet had suspected something of the sort had been going on, but now there was confirmation and her master didn’t react at all. His forehead got a little wrinkly, but he didn’t ask questions, didn’t demand to know how she had done it. Juliet’s wonderful master said only, “It was fine.”

It was not fine. Juliet could see the complicated swirl of feelings stirred up by those few words. If she was reading his face’s expression properly, though, he was probably hiding it well. Maybe? She was trying to learn how meat bodies expressed emotion, but they were so confusing.

“We could have more,” replied the Rowena witch in a tone of voice Juliet recognized. “Get out of this dump, a break from these foul-smelling suck ups, flex our muscles in the real world and in the process take out a miserable, old witch who’s been standing in my way for centuries. What do you say?”

She was trying to tempt by sounding nice, Juliet realized. It was the fake sort of nice that some of the master’s petitioners used when they were trying to get him to approve an idea of theirs. Worse, her words made it sound like they were equals. Fortunately, her master seemed to see through it because he turned and walked away.

Thinking over all she had heard, Juliet followed him. It seemed, rather than targeting anyone who mattered to Juliet, magic/death/tea Rowena wanted help killing a fellow witch. Not just any witch either, but a personal rival, and the enemy of an enemy could be an ally. It was something to consider.

Juliet’s master walked away from the Rowena witch, but he only went as far as his seldom-used office. From there, he dug out a file of papers, set it on his desk and said, “Let’s see what sort of dirt we’ve got on you, Olivette.”

Paper wasn’t dirt, but Juliet had come to realize that her master had a habit of calling things by the wrong name. She would never judge him for it. He forgave her mistakes, so she could easily ignore his.

Curling up on her bed in the corner, Juliet quietly watched and listened. Her master looked at the papers one at a time — including a picture of a woman with light-coloured wavy hair — then closed the folder. He then poured himself a glass of Scotch and summoned a lesser demon.

The demon who arrived wore the body of a slender female human with long black hair and smelled of incense and some sort of sweet fruit which Juliet forgot the name of. Her master took a sip of his drink, then said, “Matthias, I need you to— “

“Yolanda,” the demon interrupted. “I go by Yolanda now.”

“Ah yes, my apologies. Last I heard, you hadn’t chosen a name yet. Yolanda, I need you to dig up everything you can find on the leader of the Grand Coven of Witches, one Olivette. Apparently she’s currently in the States.”

Incense/fruit Yolanda half-bowed and replied, “Yes, of course, Your Majesty.”

The minion left and Juliet was alone with her master once more. He raised the glass to his lips and drank, then said, “Stop looking at me like that. She’s my mother. She brought me into the world, the least I can do is help her with her petty revenge scheme.”

The Rowena witch was Juliet’s master’s creator? Was _that_ what the word mother meant? What an awful thought. No wonder he was ignoring Juliet’s warnings. She couldn’t blame him for needing to protect his creator, even if he didn’t like the foul creature.

To show her master that she felt no ill will towards him, she got up and licked his face, then nosed his cheek. Thankfully, he got the message, putting his glass down to pet her head and scratch behind her ears. For all his flaws, Juliet had a good master.

When ear scratches were done, her master offered to play fetch. He sent things away for her to track and bring back. Some things ended up just outside the palace, some halfway around the world, but all were delicate little things that Juliet had to carefully cradle in her mouth to return them safely.

She was bringing back her master’s now-empty Scotch glass when she noticed that her master was no longer alone. Incense/fruit Yolanda had returned with some papers and was saying, “ —the witch Olivette appears to be alone in the States. She may have other members of her coven nearby, but she is residing alone aside from a single non-magical manservant. Sire, if you plan to have her dealt with, she is far from helpless, but now may be your best chance.”

Accepting the papers without looking at them, her master said, “Noted. You might _actually_ be the first person today to display some measure of competence in my presence. Let me know if you find anything else.”

The minion bowed her way out of the room. Only then did Juliet’s master look at the papers. Whatever he saw made his eyebrows lift, and his true form stilled.

Juliet padded silently over to her master’s desk, leaned down, and gently set the Scotch glass down in its usual spot. In response, her master patted her without glancing away from the page. Resting her head on her master’s shoulder, she looked at the paper, but she could never understand how he found meaning in the squiggles on the paper. He obviously understood something she didn’t, but she couldn’t imagine where to even begin trying to figure it out. She could still puzzle out answers with the information she had overheard, though.

The Rowena witch had asked for help dealing with a witch. Her master had then gone to look at a file with papers about someone named Olivette. Incense/fruit Yolanda had been sent to find information about a witch named Olivette. The pattern was clear, but then why had her master not agreed with the nasty Rowena witch when she asked?

Oh! The answer was so simple. Her master was a master, not a ‘hound to be sent on an errand. He couldn’t just do what the tea witch asked or he’d look like her ‘hound. If he came back later with a plan, he could take his proper place in charge of everything. Juliet still wasn’t prepared to accept the Rowena witch as her equal — she was _not_ a bitch and would _never_ belong in a pack — but she definitely didn’t belong in charge.

Reaching back to stroke Juliet’s head, her master slipped out from under her chin, gathered his papers, and stood. Over his shoulder, he said, “Papa has to go organize a witch hunt. I know you don’t like Mother, but you can come along, too, if you like.”

There was no way Juliet would willingly miss a moment of it. Hiding herself from mortal eyes, she followed her master.

_ _ _

The actual planning was boring. They talked of spells and runes and troop movements and they didn’t argue or insult each other at all. The Rowena witch was getting too comfortable and her master didn’t seem at all concerned. Juliet would have to be concerned enough for both of them.

Of all things, the Rowena witch held up a rock that smelled of magic. Why would someone make a magic rock? What would a magic rock even _do_? The witch called it by an impressive-sounding name and her master complimented her for it. Juliet was beyond glad when the talking phone thing made a noise and interrupted them.

Walking to the other side of the room and into the hallway, her master touched the phone thing to make it talk, then spoke to it. “Well, well, well, if it isn’t— “

He must have been interrupted, because he stopped and listened a moment, then said, “Why would I do that for you?” There was a long pause, and then, “Yes.”

He put the phone thing back in his pocket and walked back into the room. The Rowena witch tried to keep planning the mission, but he stopped her. He told her he had something he had to do that couldn’t wait, and that Olivette could. He opened a secret hidden drawer and took out the magic bone knife, wrapped in a piece of leather. Juliet had hunted and guarded that knife. It was special. She and it had a history.

Magic/death/tea Rowena widened her eyes and spoke loudly, all sorts of emotions in her face and voice that Juliet was only beginning to learn. “Is that what I think it is?”

Pointing the wrapped knife at her, master replied, “Not that it’s any of your business.”

“Let me guess,” said the witch. “Bringing it to your wee pal, the Winchester boy. You’d give that to the one person who can harness its power against you. He’s a threat to you!”

There it was again. Winchester. Juliet searched her memory for the word. Winchesters were hunters, there were two of them, one could use the magic bone knife and was a friend of her master. The pieces moved at the rate of Hell time, but they slotted into place. Dean. Beer/cars/gunpowder/magic Dean.

“We’ve a common enemy, a bigger threat,” her master growled, and Juliet was inclined to agree with him. The Rowena witch was a big threat.

“Well, if he’s not a threat to your life,” the witch changed her tactic, “he’s certainly a threat to your credibility. We’ve talked about what this does to your reputation.”

Privately, Juliet thought it was more that her master missed spending time with Dean. Possibly Moose, too (probably not, because Moose was mean and wanted to kill him) but she could only say Dean for certain. But Dean was a demon, wasn’t he? Juliet was confused. Her master had sent the angel-man Castiel to “fix the problem” of Dean being a demon. But if Dean wasn’t dead, he was probably still a demon, unless there was a way to not be a demon anymore. She was forced to conclude that she still didn’t have enough information.

“We are not having this conversation,” said her master, turning to leave.

“Consorting with hunters,” continued the Rowena witch, as if he had said nothing. “Oh, me. Oh, my. You honestly believe that they’re your friends, that they care about you?!”

Juliet’s master walked out and closed the door behind him. The urge to follow him was hard to ignore, but he had agreed to give magic/death/tea Rowena what she wanted, and then told her it would have to wait. He might not have been paying attention, but Juliet had. The tea witch was greedy about getting what she wanted, and would be dangerous after being scorned like that.

The Rowena witch stood and stared at the doors, then set off in the same direction, flinging the doors open with a wave of her hand and a shouted word. She stormed off down the halls, head held high, glaring at any demon she encountered until they moved aside for her. Juliet followed silently in her wake.

They reached the witch’s room and she flung her own door open the same as the other. Following as closely as she could manage without detection, Juliet barely squeezed into the room before the door closed. Once inside, she had to bite down to stifle the whimper that threatened to escape. Everything that she and Brutus had destroyed — the things for sitting, the soft floor thing, the bed, the table — it was all fixed. No, not even fixed, it was as if it had never been broken at all.

The Rowena witch opened the clothing storage thing and, with swift, practiced movements, removed everything inside and laid it all on the bed. She draped a covering over herself, then folded and rolled the rest to make it all smaller. From the bottom of the storage thing, she took out two bags, into which went all the clothing, her grooming things, and the little witchy box from under the bed. Then, one bag in each hand, she left again, Juliet scrambling to stay out of her way so as to avoid detection.

Once back in the throne room, she waited. For once, Juliet could read the emotion in a meat body, but only because anger was practically shouting with the body. The Rowena witch was angry, and she was waiting with everything she owned until the master came back. Juliet sat quietly beside the throne and waited, too.

She had no idea how much time had passed, but it was a relief to hear her master’s footsteps approaching. She actually smelled him the moment he entered the building, the familiar blend of smoke and Scotch and magic and a trace of human blood like a hug for her nose. As he approached, she sniffed the air for the subtler scents that would cling to him for a short time as clues to where he had been. There was hay and was that paint? More importantly, she could smell the faintest hints of what smelled like Moose, angel-man Castiel, and Dean, but the smell of the magic bone knife was just as faint, which meant it was gone again.

The door opened, her master walked in — his inner self a swirling cloud of agitation — and went straight to the Scotch, while the Rowena witch said, “Fergus.”

He poured himself a glass and said, “I don’t wanna hear it — the 'I told you so's — not now.” Capping the bottle, he picked up his glass and only then did he look and see the bags at the witch’s feet. “What are you doing?”

“What’s it look like? I’m leaving,” she replied. Juliet fought to restrain the urge to bark her delight, though she did wag her tail.

He walked over to where the witch stood. “Another petty manipulation.”

“No.” Could it be? Was the vile witch truly leaving?

“Then what, Mother?” he demanded, then spread his hands and shouted, “What do you want from me?”

“You can’t understand my disappointment...or my pride,” the witch said, her eyes shiny and wet. “You don’t know this, but after I left you, after I was _forced_ to leave you, I heard of your death — your mortal death.” She sniffled, tears spilling down her cheeks. “I thought you were gone to me forever.”

She smiled. “Then, hundreds of years later, and thousands of miles away, I find you, the King of Hell, and not by luck or accident. You made that happen all by yourself. You’re not a mother. You can’t know what that pride felt like, how huge it was.”

Juliet’s master was also smiling, inside and out, the words making his true face something bright and airy, like a cloud made of demon. It was something she so seldom saw, and she wanted to believe it could last. But the words came from an awful deceiver, and there was no way they were meant well.

“But can you try to imagine,” the Rowena witch continued, “for me? Now can you imagine how it breaks my heart to see what a colossal numb nut you’ve become?!”

The tears stopped and the soft voice turned to shouting. “You’ve got the crown, but you’re no ruler, not really! A sad, bored, wee boy on the throne who’ll flop ass-up the second those Winchesters — hunters who’d as soon see you dead as have you to tea — ask you to.”

She turned and snatched up her bags, saying, “You’re no king, not anymore.”

The master grabbed her arm and held her there until she winced and dropped the bags, the smile gone from his face and his true form dark and still. Juliet longed to go to him, to lick his face and bump her head against his chest. He didn’t deserve to be hurt like that when he was already feeling hurt before.

Snatching her arm back, the nasty witch wrinkled her nose and looked him in the eyes and said, “You’re their bitch.”

She left her bags there and marched out of the room, her outer garment swishing behind her. Juliet’s master watched her leave, then downed his Scotch and poured another. The witch remained, continuing to make everything around her worse. And still, Juliet could do nothing. Her master was nobody’s bitch. He wasn’t a dog. He was the King of Hell and he gave the orders and the Rowena witch had it all wrong. Juliet longed to bite something, but hunts had stopped since the witch’s arrival. Nothing was going right.

Helpless to do anything else, she crossed the floor to where her master stood staring into his glass of Scotch. She waited until he saw her, then bumped her head against his chest. Attention caught, she then licked his hand. The faintest hint of a smile tugged at his lips and he lifted his hand to stroke her fur. “Good dog, Juliet.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, and I hope you'll leave me a comment to let me know what you thought. Chapter 5 will post next Sunday, but if you're impatient for more to read, I co-wrote a fic with grey2510 which will begin posting tomorrow (Monday). I hope you'll give it a chance.
> 
> As always, I can be found on Tumblr as @thayerkerbasy. I'm not terribly chatty, but you're welcome to chill with me there.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You've all waited so patiently, but now it's here: the penultimate chapter. This note is entirely unnecessary, but I wanted an excuse to say penultimate.

After the fiasco of the Rowena witch almost leaving, life in the court had returned to a strange state of almost normal. Juliet was able to curl up in her bed beside the throne while her master dealt with business things. Interruptions kept cropping up though. Petitioners complained that the witch altered their meat suits and they weren’t allowed to retaliate. One was covered in boils, another couldn’t stop itching, and one sported the longest nose Juliet had ever seen.

The latest was a demon with a face on either side of his head. If anyone else had done such a thing, they would have been killed or possibly sentenced to several lifetimes of torture. It was yet another sign that magic/death/tea Rowena was too dangerous to be allowed to stay.

Instead of ordering death or torture, her master sighed and called, “Mother!”

The nasty witch walked into the room slowly, barely lifting her feet, her head down. She looked like a pup with a bitten nose, but Juliet knew that nobody had bitten her nose because nobody was permitted to do so. She was pretending to something she wasn’t.

Almost immediately, she dropped the act and returned to her usual self. She didn’t fix the demon she’d altered, only saying she’d done a good job. He rolled both sets of eyes — magnificently, and Juliet was jealous — and was silently ordered out of the room by their master.

Once the lesser demon was gone, Juliet’s master leaned forward on his throne and said, “Look, Mummy, enough. I know you’re annoyed with me.”

“Annoyed?” the witch trampled over whatever else he had meant to say. “No, Fergus. I’m devastated, betrayed, and broken-hearted.”

“Because I wouldn’t go begging to a bunch of witches on your behalf?” Juliet couldn’t keep up with the changes in their voices. It was a befuddling array of emotions, and any of them could have been false. Her master’s true form looked annoyed as he said those words though.

“The Grand Coven is the supreme command of all witchcraft. Without their sanction, I’m forbidden to practice!” the Rowena witch shouted, and even Juliet could hear the anger in her voice.

“Forgive me. I hadn’t noticed you’d stopped.”

“That? Parlour trick. I’m capable of greatness. Given free rein, I’d be unstoppable.”

That made Juliet sit up and take notice. The witch was already powerful enough. She didn’t need more power. She freely admitted that she’d be unstoppable if it weren’t for whatever the “Grand Coven” was. A shiver went through Juliet’s non-corporeal form at the thought.

“I am this close to throwing you back into that dungeon.” He said that, but Juliet didn’t see any sign of that inside him. It was another confirmation that if Juliet wanted the witch gone, she’d have to do something herself.

“Of course. Why not? Why do anything but cause me more pain? Bad enough that you wouldn’t intervene with Olivette and the Coven, but you went directly against my wishes, siding with those Winchesters, refusing to kill them, then delivering the First Blade into their hands, which you know could slaughter us all. You prefer them to your own flesh and blood. It’s a bitter pill, Fergus, after all I’ve done for you.”

Juliet was in full support of not giving the Rowena witch what she wanted. She wasn’t sure how she felt about some of those things, but if the witch wanted them, Juliet didn’t want her to have them. No extra power, no killing Moose and Dean Winchester, and they could even have the magic bone knife if the witch didn’t want them to have it. Juliet hadn’t been sure of her feelings about the absence of the knife they called the “First Blade”, but hearing the awful Rowena witch shouting about it had helped her decide. They could have it.

“And what exactly could that be?” her master asked.

The witch stepped closer, smiled and said, “I gave you life, Fergus. Without me, Sunshine, you wouldn’t exist.”

Turning, she strode away, pausing at the door to say a magic word that made all the glass things break. The abrupt sound made Juliet’s ears fold back. The witch deserved to be ripped to bits and delivered to the torture demons, but she walked free.

One look at her master showed why. He sat in thought for a moment, then shook his head. The conflicting emotions swirling inside him became a firm decision. He gave in. Reaching over, he stroked Juliet’s fur and said, “Juliet, I do believe we’re going on a hunt.”

_ _ _

Demons ranged around the building in groups of five, each group with at least one hellhound. At the door to the building, Juliet remained by her master’s side with two other demons; as they waited, another trotted over. The smoke inside the suit-clad young man smelled like smoke and little else, which meant it was probably a very new demon. It was trying very hard to keep its face controlled, but the corners of its lips twitched when it said, “All outer warding is disabled, Sire. There might be more inside, but my hellhound hasn’t indicated any.”

Definitely a pup. If it were a ‘hound, its tail would have been wagging. In fact, the hellhound beside it _was_ wagging its tail. Juliet recognized a pup from the most recent litter to grow up and leave the kennel.

Considering the pair of pups before him, Juliet’s master nodded and said, “Well then — what was your name again?”

“Emily, Sire.”

“Well then, Emily, you and your hellhound won’t mind leading the way to check for more inside, will you?”

Squaring the meatsuit’s shoulders, Emily replied, “Yes, sir. I mean, no, sir. That is, Thor and I can definitely do that.”

For a long moment, nobody moved, until Juliet’s master said, “Well? Sometime today, perhaps? Unless, that is, you were waiting for our quarry to find a way to evade capture.”

Emily held her borrowed head a little higher and said, “Thor, sniff. Find me anything magic, Thor.”

The ‘hound who was now named Thor led the way, first through the door, then down hallways and up stairs, stopping every time there was anything magic to disable. Juliet could have found it all just as easily, but she supposed the pups needed to practice. She only needed to intervene once, when Thor missed a magic cloth bag thing hidden above a doorway. Juliet’s master lifted an eyebrow in pup Emily’s direction, then praised Juliet.

Juliet smelled it first — dried rosemary, thyme, and something dead — but something told her to wait. Sure enough, it wasn’t long before Thor stopped in his tracks and lifted a paw. Juliet’s master looked to her for confirmation, so she obligingly faced the proper door and pointed as well. Nodding, her master pointed to the other demons, then at the door, and made a stabbing motion.

Once the door was opened, everything happened faster. Emily, Thor, and the other two demons rushed in. Rosemary/thyme/dead things person started saying words for magic as she threw a little cloth bag thing. The bag thing almost hit pup Emily, but she dodged to the side and it hit another demon instead, almost immediately causing him to fall to the floor clutching his head.

While everyone else was otherwise occupied, Juliet’s master whispered, “Juliet, surprise her.”

What a good master she had. The others got the dangerous task and she got the fun one. Slowly and softly, Juliet crept invisibly around the fight utterly undetected. Her master vanished, but she wasn’t worried. The other demon got close enough to stab but got a faceful of some sort of magic powder for his troubles. He went down, frantically scrubbing at his face.

Behind their quarry, Juliet watched as Thor was frozen with a word. Pup Emily tried shooting metal bits at the rosemary/thyme/death person, but the metal bits fell to the floor before reaching their target. Another word pinned pup Emily to the wall where she squirmed ineffectively.

Finally, Juliet’s teeth clamped around her quarry’s wrist, her teeth just breaking the skin, and she tackled the woman to the ground from behind. The woman struggled, but was smaller and lighter than Juliet. It was a simple matter to keep her pinned, teeth threatening to remove a hand.

A moment later came the sound of metal on metal — iron by the smell of it — and then Juliet’s master said, “Juliet, release.”

Obeying the command, she released the woman’s hand from her jaws so her master could trap it in iron. Both hands were bound together with room to move, but the moment the second hand was trapped, the pups Emily and Thor were released from the magic binding them. The other two demons continued to writhe in pain on the floor.

“Olivette,” said her master, “High Priestess of the Grand Coven and general high muckety muck. I don’t believe I’ve yet had the pleasure of your acquaintance.”

Rosemary/thyme/dead things Olivette sneered, “You demons are all the same. You won’t keep me for long.”

He smiled, eyebrows raised, and replied, “Oh, see now, that’s where you’re wrong. There are _no_ other demons like me.”

Juliet was so proud of her master. ‘Hounds knew how to be proud of their accomplishments and always saw the best in people, but demons sometimes had a hard time with that. It was good to hear her master sounding like his old self again.

As he hauled the Olivette witch to her feet, one of the demons on the floor stilled and became empty meat. The other still scrubbed at his face, but less urgently, and seemed able to stand. The Emily pup took the angel knife thing from the dead one’s hand, then asked, “Sire, permission to go hunt and kill her servant?”

He shrugged with his face, an expression Juliet had so often seen and only now understood. “I’d say the small army of demons outside would have already caught him if he tried to flee, so he’s probably holed up in here somewhere. Scour the building with your dog. Once you have him, you can tell the lot outside to go, unless you’d like to enlist backup. Your call.”

Nodding once, she said, “Thor, sniff. Find me another human, Thor.”

The rosemary/thyme/death witch was doing that thing humans sometimes did with their faces, holding everything tense while taking deep breaths. She quietly said, “Damn you. That boy is the best servant I’ve had in a decade.”

“Well then,” her master replied, “hopefully his soul has been blackened enough to come to me after he’s been butterflied like pork loin. Emily there is fresh off the rack and hungry to pass on the torment, so it might be a bit of a wait.”

Dismissing the injured demon to seek assistance, he placed a hand on the Olivette witch’s shoulder and said, “Juliet, time to go.” 

Even though there had been no kill, it was a good hunt. Pups were trained, a witch was caught, and her master sounded much more like himself. Tail wagging, she followed her master back home.

_ _ _

With the Olivette witch secured, Juliet expected it was only a matter of time before she would be asked to deliver the witch’s soul to the torture demons. Of course, they might want to torture her for information, but eventually Juliet would get to do her favourite part of the job. She loved holding those pretty glowing souls in her mouth.

Rosemary/thyme/death Olivette was handed off to two loyal minions — both of whom, Juliet noted, had been altered by the nasty Rowena’s magic. The demon minions were told to wait for their cue, then bring their prisoner into the throne room. Oh! He was putting on a show. Her master delighted in staging conversations. They weren’t always fun to watch, but they usually put him in a better mood.

After sending a demon to fetch his “mother”, he sat on his throne to wait. Juliet quietly curled up on her bed to do the same. She watched her master arrange his meat form on the throne, one leg crossed over the other, head held high. For a moment she wondered why he bothered to change anything, but she soon gave it up. Being invisible to mortal eyes was much easier than fussing about with limb placement.

When magic/death/tea Rowena arrived, she was showier than ever. She did a sweeping thing with her arms, bending at the knees, which made no sense whatsoever to Juliet. As she bent, she said, “You summoned, your Royal Highness.”

Though the action was incomprehensible to Juliet, it seemed to irritate her master, who only said, “Mother.”

“Oh, he remembers!” she replied. Straightening, she continued, “What _can_ I do for you?”

“It’s what I can do for you.” He smiled briefly. “I’ve been thinking just how wretched it would be if my _own_ raison d’être — wreaking pain and havoc on Earth — were taken from me. I see how stifled you must feel, and I sympathize.”

As so often was the case, his words didn’t match his insides. It was confusing to Juliet. He was choosing to do a nice thing for the awful Rowena person, so why was he lying about his reasons?

Rowena smiled hesitantly. “Does this mean you’ll go to the Grand Coven on my behalf?”

He stood and stepped down from his throne — Juliet, of course, followed — slipped a hand into his pocket and walked over to the Rowena witch. “Even better.” He circled around so he faced the throne, forcing the witch to turn and face the hallway. “I’ve brought the Coven to you.”

As he spoke, the pair of demons led the rosemary/thyme/death witch into the room. “I believe you know Olivette, High Priestess of the Grand Coven.”

It looked to Juliet as if the Rowena witch suddenly lost control of her face. It was her own flesh, but she just couldn’t keep control of it. Her mouth fell open, her eyes widened, her lower lip quivered. It was a reaction Juliet had never seen. Just to be sure, she double-checked the Olivette witch, but she was still bound by iron.

Her master leaned in, blocking the Rowena witch’s view of the other witch. “Speechless with joy?”

Having never witnessed such a reaction, Juliet was glad to have an explanation. That was when it sank in, though. The awful Rowena witch had asked for help to deal with a rival witch. She needed someone from the Grand Coven to fix things so she could be more powerful. Olivette was High Whatever in the Grand Coven.

Blinking rapidly, the Rowena witch whimpered, but after spotting the iron bindings, drew in a deep breath and said, “You _utter bitch!_ ”

The Olivette witch shot back, “Bottom-feeder!”

Awful Rowena recoiled as if struck. In a way, Juliet could understand. Being assigned to feed anyone was hardly a glorious task, let alone being asked to feed someone at the bottom of the pack. Juliet had never needed to feed anyone but herself, and ‘hound pups could mostly take care of themselves after a month or two, but perhaps mortals were different.

Her master’s voice remained calm between the two witches, which Juliet appreciated. “Ah, the storm before the storm. As you can see, the iron chains render her powerless, so you can plead your case, exact your revenge, whatever it is that puts a spring back in your step. You kids have fun now.”

The implications sank in, and the Rowena witch smiled. For once, it actually looked genuine. The smile lasted until the master left, and then she turned a predatory gaze towards her rival. Juliet wanted, no, needed to see what came next. Her master walked away, though, and issued a summons that she couldn’t ignore. He had no intention of letting her stay. Reluctantly, she stalked out of the room, leaving the pair of witches alone, her growl of discontent drowned out by their argument.

Once they were far enough away to avoid being overheard, her master stopped and addressed the pair of demons. “I need you two to stay here and monitor the situation. If anyone leaves that room, I want to be informed immediately.”

The one with two faces asked, “And, should we need to find you, where will you be, Sire?”

“Call me,” he replied, obviously annoyed at having to say anything. “There are some high profile contracts that need collecting, and I do mean high profile. Call me if either of them set foot outside that room, keep the situation contained, but otherwise I expect you to handle anything insignificant.”

The pair exchanged glances, then the same demon replied, “Yes, sir. Happy hunting, Your Majesty.”

Contracts! That meant hunting! Juliet hadn’t gone on a proper hunt since before the arrival of magic/death/tea Rowena (following behind the pups until she could stalk and pin the Olivette witch didn’t count because there hadn’t been a kill). She missed the hunting and the glorious moment of the kill, but most of all she missed spending time with her master that had nothing to do with witches.

Her master reached out and patted her. “Come, Juliet. There’s a senator who’s been allowed to keep his soul for too long, not that he’s been using it. Honestly, if you could take it without killing him, no one would even notice. Let’s go do the world a favour.”

A favour? Her master sometimes said he was doing a favour, but it was usually just business. How was collecting a soul for Hell doing anyone a favour? And why had he been allowed to keep his soul for too long? None of Juliet’s questions could be answered to her satisfaction, but she suspected her master of using the wrong words on purpose to sound mysterious. It was just his way.

Juliet didn’t like the idea of leaving the witches alone, but she didn’t see that she had much choice. Her job was to hunt and retrieve souls bound for Hell and to protect her master from harm. The witches were focusing their attention on each other, and Juliet had at least one soul to fetch. With nothing else to be done about it, she decided to forget about them until her return. There was a senator — whatever that was — to be torn open and a soul to be carried back, all in the company of her wonderful master, far away from any witches. The rest of her day had potential.

_ _ _

The senator refused to leave his office, and her master insisted that the “high profile” hunts needed to happen outside, for whatever reason — something about wild animal attacks indoors raising too many questions — so Juliet had stalked outside while the senator grew more and more agitated. The wait had been entirely worthwhile.

After ferrying the senator’s soul to judgement, there had been enough time for one more hunt. Already scoured clean by the first soul, Juliet bounded cheerfully through the second hunt. Her master referred to the man as something called a “cardinal”. Juliet didn’t know what a cardinal was, but his bright red clothing made him an easy target. Her master had stayed to watch, saying he wanted to “see the man’s sins catch up with him”.

Everyone reacted differently when Juliet came to claim their soul. Some people tried to run, others tried to hide, and some tried to beg for mercy. The cardinal did none of those. He was walking through a garden when she came for him. He froze in place, then lifted his chin and said, “I know why you’re here, but the Church needs me. What if I found you other souls to take my place?”

Juliet knew that she hadn’t been collecting souls for nearly as long as most of the other ‘hounds had, so it probably wasn’t surprising that she had never heard that one before. For all she knew, it might have been a reasonable option. She turned to silently enquire her master’s opinion. He smirked and shook his head, saying, “You can’t sell anyone’s soul but your own, Your Eminence, and you’ve already done that. Juliet, feel free to take your time with him.”

The sun was just peeking over the horizon when she left with his soul in her mouth. The flowers were crushed and liberally splattered with blood. Nobody had come to investigate his screams.

_ _ _

The feeling of being filled with light buoyed Juliet long after delivering the souls to judgement. No matter the soul, they were always such a joy to be around. She had only managed two trips before they ran out of time, but two was easily enough to remind her just what she had been missing.

Her master had returned ahead of her, called back by the demons who had been left to watch the witches. It wasn’t the first time he had left before a hunt was complete, and it wouldn’t be the last. Juliet didn’t mind all that much, it just meant she had no audience. It did also mean that she didn’t get to hear about any new developments until she had finished her job. She minded that part a whole lot more.

When she returned from delivering the cardinal’s soul to be scourged, she immediately went in search of her master. When she found him, he was not alone. He and the Rowena witch stood before a small cage containing a tiny furry creature that smelled oddly of magic. There were other scents on the creature that smelled familiar, but it was a new combination.

Magic/death/tea Rowena had just said something, but her master interrupted with, “Listen, we’ve been through this. My relationship with the Winchesters is my business. I’ll handle them. I’m not killing them.”

The witch smiled in an exaggerated way. “Alright deary. Of course,” she said, then clapped a hand to his shoulder. “Whatever you say.”

The Rowena witch left the room then, leaving Juliet alone with her master and the tiny furry magic-smelling thing. Juliet approached to stand by her master’s side. She still felt warm and bright inside from the souls, but she could tell that the words had made her master feel not-good.

He noticed her then and stroked her fur. “You did well today, Juliet. I wish I hadn’t missed the grand finale. We’ll have to find time later on to finish off that list.”

Juliet silently agreed, but otherwise was content to stand and get petted. The noises from the cage and that oddly familiar smell kept distracting her, though. The tiny thing was prey in a box. She sniffed it again, trying to sort out what it could be.

“Juliet,” her master said, “you are not to harm this creature. Olivette is helpless and I want you to keep her safe.”

But… prey! The thing moved and she wanted to bite it. The strange combination of smells made biting even more tempting. But biting was forbidden, and— wait. Olivette?

She sniffed the thing again more carefully, taking the time to identify each scent. There was magic over everything, but under that was the strong scent of animal fur and wood shavings. Subtler was a faint whiff of death, which Juliet had ignored because she had thought it was from her. Underlying all of that was the faintest hint of spices: rosemary and thyme.

That was when she saw the tiny red thing around the creature’s neck. The Olivette witch had worn a thing just like it, but bigger. That confirmed what her other senses had been telling her. The tiny creature was the Olivette witch, and she was forbidden to harm it, just as she was forbidden to harm the Rowena witch. How could everything have gone so wrong, so fast? Juliet was going to need another plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed that one. Next week's update will be the last for this story. Please take a moment to let me know what you thought of the chapter. I love hearing your thoughts.
> 
> If you're impatient for more to read, [grey2510](http://archiveofourown.org/users/grey2510/pseuds/grey2510) and I wrote a fic called [Well Endowed](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11709525/chapters/26370930). It's a canon divergent fic, takes place after the season 12 finale, and co-stars our beloved Juliet. Chapter 4 of Well Endowed posts tomorrow and it updates every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
> 
> I can be found on Tumblr as @thayerkerbasy if you do the Tumblr thing. I'm not a chatty guy, but I post things relevant to my interests.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it, our final chapter. Thank you to everyone who stuck with me and followed this story. Without further ado, I hope you enjoy it.

Whenever she could, Juliet met with kennel master Connall and Brutus to try to come up with new ideas to get rid of the Rowena witch. Dead things didn’t scare her off, burning her spell ingredients didn’t stop her, and broken things didn’t slow her down. Juliet had tried to stay positive, but with the Olivette witch out of the way, the Rowena witch was likely more powerful than before and they hadn’t come up with anything new.

Every so often, she and Brutus searched the palace for magic markings. She could smell them, and Brutus knew which ones were supposed to be there and how to destroy some of them without getting hurt. Between the two of them, they could ruin most of them. Of course, they kept reappearing, but that made it more important to keep taking them down.

Whenever she wasn’t patrolling the halls for magic markings or trying to come up with new ideas, Juliet followed the Rowena witch. Where before she had been causing difficulties for random demons, she was instead spending more time alone in her room. It was a troubling thought, since Juliet couldn’t often follow her there.

She had just searched the palace with Brutus recently, had no new ideas, and the Rowena witch was in her room with the door closed, so Juliet sought out her master. It was almost a relief to have nothing else she could do, because it meant she could spend some time with him without worrying what else she could have been doing. She missed having her master to herself.

She found him in a hallway heading towards her. His mouth curved up in a little smile and his true form lightened. “Juliet! There’s my good dog. Papa’s missed you.”

Crossing the distance between them in a few steps, Juliet bumped her head against his chest and wagged her tail until he petted her. It was so nice that she almost forgot that he was willing to believe in the Rowena witch over her. She missed being able to spend all her time in his company without worrying about someone plotting against him. She missed when he used to trust in her instincts. She wanted her master back.

Giving her side a good solid pat, he said, “I was just on my way to see what Mother’s been up to. There’s something odd going on.”

Juliet’s ears perked up. Was this it? Had he finally seen through her words to the evil underneath? Feeling optimistic, she trotted along beside her master to the witch’s room, where he didn’t bother to knock, instead opening the door and walking right in.

Inside the room, magic/death/tea Rowena had removed all of her outer coverings and was painting witchy markings directly on her meat. Juliet peered at them to see if she could recognize anything she had seen before, but the witch moved too quickly to see as she snatched a covering from the bed. At Juliet’s side, her master averted his eyes and said, “Oh. God.”

The Rowena witch quickly covered herself and said, “Please. It’s nothing you haven’t seen before.”

They talked back and forth about why it was or wasn’t a problem for him to see her without coverings. It took Juliet a moment to realize it, but because he had so quickly looked away, he hadn’t seen the markings. The witch had covered herself from the neck down, so when he looked, the markings were covered. The witch was still deceiving him and he still couldn’t see it!

He sounded suspicious when he asked what the witch had been up to, and for a moment Juliet felt hopeful. She should have known better. The Rowena witch said something about seeing a firm Trent who wasn’t a bright bulb, which made no sense at all. It was enough, though. Juliet’s master just told the witch to stop talking and put some clothes on, and then he left. He didn’t even wait to see if Juliet was going with him. Just for that, she stayed.

Surprisingly, the door stayed open. Juliet would have thought the witch would want privacy, but apparently she was beyond hiding things. She pulled the magic box out from under the bed and opened it. Inside were bottles, candles, little scoop things, a magic cloth bag, and various other things used for magic. That was when the smell hit Juliet’s nose. Something in the box had belonged to her master.

The Rowena witch removed a few things from the box and set them on the bed. Given the witch's usual caution and scheming, Juliet expected her to put the box away. Instead, the box remained on the floor, and the witch moved her supplies to a table where she began chanting over her supplies.

Juliet would have no better chance. As quietly as she had ever moved, Juliet carefully stalked over to the box. Once she could see more clearly, it was obvious what had been taken. One of her master’s cloth collar things was wrapped around a tiny cloth person. She couldn’t take anything that belonged to the witch. It was entirely possible that the witch could complain to Juliet’s master about her missing cloth person, and then where would that leave Juliet? No, much better to just take back the cloth collar thing.

It took a little effort, but with one paw on the cloth person, she managed to daintily take the collar thing between her teeth. Thankfully, the sounds from whatever the witch was doing were enough to cover the small sounds from what Juliet was doing. From there, it was simply a matter of unwinding the thing, patting the little cloth person back where it belonged, and sneaking away. As she rounded the corner out the door, she heard the sounds of things being put back into the box. Keenly aware of the visibility of the thing she carried, Juliet hastened her steps.

Once she was well away from the Rowena witch, there was the small matter of what to do with the thing. She could put it back with the others, but it undoubtedly needed cleaning. If she brought it to her master, there was always the chance he might think she had taken it to play with. He wouldn’t have thought such a thing before, but the Rowena witch seemed to have confused his mind.

Lacking other options, Juliet took the cloth collar thing back to the kennel. She didn’t want the Rowena witch to get her hands on it again to do whatever magic she’d been using it for. It would need to be destroyed. Juliet was forbidden to damage anything belonging to her master, but she had learned from the best. Her master was still King of the Crossroads even while he was King of Hell, and crossroads demons knew all about loopholes. She wasn’t exactly sure what a loophole was, but everything she had heard led her to believe that it was like when your prey managed to convince you to circle around a hole and then it dives in and hides.

Whatever it meant, it had something to do with breaking rules and not getting caught. To that end, she sought out the youngest ‘hound pups with physical forms and casually dropped the collar thing on the ground near them. She had barely taken a step away before they were excitedly playing and fighting over it. The sound when it finally tore apart was beautiful.

When the pups were done playing, Juliet gathered up the scraps and brought them to kennel master Connall. She dropped the pieces into his hands and then pointedly looked at the nearest fire. He smiled with one side of his mouth and said, “Does this have something to do with what we’ve been working on?”

Juliet barked a gleeful confirmation. Without hesitation, Connall dropped the bits into the fire. When all the bits had shriveled and burned, he petted her. “There, that’s done. I hope it helps.”

As thanks, she licked his fingers, ignoring the taste of ash. She didn’t know what the witch had been doing with the thing, but there was no way it was anything good. With the thing gone, she left to check in on the witch again.

Still in her chambers preparing to do magic, Rowena had since closed the door, but Juliet could smell her. Inside the room were the witch, the blood she was using for her spells, and the building smell of magic. Unfortunately, there was nothing else Juliet could do besides wait. It frustrated her to feel so helpless in the face of danger to her master, but she was determined to do whatever she could, and if that meant waiting outside a door, then she would wait.

The blood smell dried and the magic smell grew stronger until it _fwoofed_. Then there was nothing but the soft rustling sound of cloth over skin. Footsteps approached the door, so Juliet scrambled out of the way. The Rowena witch emerged fully clothed — though Juliet could still smell magic blood markings on her skin — and strode down the corridor. Juliet followed, every inch the devoted guard ‘hound to any demons watching.

The Rowena witch’s destination was nowhere Juliet could have predicted. What an awful witch could possibly want with the demon who managed Hell’s communication spells was entirely beyond Juliet’s comprehension. She took up a position off to one side where she wouldn’t be in the way but could listen in.

What she heard reshaped everything she had learned before that. The Rowena witch wanted to know about a place the master had been kept, where he’d made a call from, where the Winchesters were. She wanted to find the Winchesters.

Juliet was undecided on the matter of that pair of hunters — Moose had threatened her master and Dean had stolen him away more than once — but they made her master… happy? More importantly, though, if the Rowena witch needed help to find them, it was because they didn’t want her to find them. If the Winchesters were against the witch, then Juliet sided with them. Sometimes two packs needed to work together to take down a bigger threat. And hadn’t her master said something like that about them before? They had a common enemy. That thought made Juliet’s tail wag; Rowena would hate being called common.

The communications demon found the general area where the Winchesters lived, which made the Rowena witch smile and say, “Thank you, dearie. Now, if you would be so kind, could you maybe see your way to pointing me towards a friendly crossroads demon who could bring me there?”

Juliet followed her to the crossroads demon, just to be sure, but there was nothing more to be gained by following the witch after that. There was no way for Juliet to stop her without hurting her, which she was forbidden to do, and there was no way to warn either of the Winchesters what was heading their way. No, it was time to enlist help and hope she was doing the right thing.

_ _ _

Following her bond with her master brought Juliet to the throne room. Her master had been spending a lot of time there lately, only occasionally retreating to his office. Also in the room was incense/fruit Yolanda, who was writing word scribbles on a paper while her master said, “ — and have someone make certain little hamster Olivette gets food and water daily. She’s a valuable prisoner, and I won’t have that squandered by someone getting careless. If she happens to mysteriously die, I will find the one responsible and make them wish for death.”

Yolanda muttered as she wrote, “... responsible… wish for death. You can count on me, Your Majesty.”

“Good. Dismissed.” He waved a hand towards the door and waited until Yolanda was gone before standing and smiling. “Juliet! Come to Papa!”

She didn’t need to be told twice. Bounding forward, Juliet cheerfully jumped up and put both paws on her master’s shoulders so she could lick his cheek. Her master huffed a laugh and patted her.

Nosing his face, it was incredibly tempting to just accept the affection and forget what she had come for. It lurked in the back of her mind, though, and reminded her of her mission. Reluctantly, Juliet dropped back down to all fours and yipped a warning. She didn’t know how to warn him about a threat to someone else, but she had to start somewhere.

Her master’s brow furrowed. “What are you talking about? This isn’t you trying to warn me about Mother again, is it?”

Growling, Juliet nosed the pocket where her master kept his phone thing. Her master dug the thing out of his pocket and said, “This? Now what?”

Through trial and error, with Juliet confirming or denying his actions, she managed to get him to open the photos. The ones that had nothing to do with business were all Dean, so Juliet had him select the first one she saw. Opening it, his face softened. “This is about Dean?”

She barked a confirmation, then repeated her yipping for a danger not in the room. Her master looked thoughtful. “You think Dean could be a danger to me?”

Juliet desperately wished she could learn to roll her eyes. Instead, she snarled her answer, then yipped her warning a third time. When the implications sank in, her master’s eyebrows lifted. “You mean, you think _Dean_ is in danger?”

Finally! Juliet’s confirming bark felt triumphant. She had managed to convey a message and her master had understood her!

Staring at his phone thing, he sighed, then put it back in his pocket. “I’d love to see someone try. Might be amusing to see what’s left when Squirrel’s done with them.”

For a moment, Juliet couldn’t react to his lack of response because Squirrel was _Dean Winchester_? Had the hunter changed from demon to squirrel somehow? Was that why he wasn’t dead? But then why would her master assume he could handle anything that tried to harm him? She again didn’t have enough information, and it frustrated her. Nosing her master’s hand, she curled up on her bed to wait for the Rowena witch’s return.

Demons came and went as her master dealt with business. Juliet smelled the witch before seeing her, which was how it usually happened, but along with the usual smells there was also fresh blood. Juliet was disappointed. A part of her had hoped beer/cars/gunpowder Dean(squirrel?) would have killed the witch once and for all. She had somewhat liked Dean, and he made her master happy. Her one consolation was that Dean’s death could possibly provoke her master to finally act against the Rowena witch.

Magic/death/tea/fresh blood Rowena rounded the corner and entered the throne room. There were cuts on her face, a cut on each arm, and a long gash on her chest. Her normally neat hair was messed and there was blood all over her skin. If Dean (Squirrel?) was gone, he had gone down fighting.

Her master glanced up, then finished signing his papers before asking, “Rough date, Mother?”

The witch replied, “Dean Winchester did this to me.”

Well, of course he had, but if the Rowena witch had been hoping for sympathy after killing one of the master’s favourites, she was wrong. Juliet eagerly anticipated the inevitable fallout. She watched as her master shooed the other demons out of the throne room, then got up and poured himself a glass of Scotch before asking, “Why were you anywhere near Dean Winchester?”

“I was trying to kill him,” answered the witch, sniffling.

She… admitted it? What was she trying to do? Juliet listened to them discuss some sort of curse mark that made Dean safe from the Rowena witch’s spells. It didn’t sound like much of a curse to her. Maybe Dean could help her master get a mark like that, so he could be protected from the things the tea witch was trying to do to him.

Finally, the witch explained her reasoning. “Those tumshies have you on a leash. I thought if they were gone, you— “

Juliet didn’t know what “tumshies” were, but nobody had her master on a leash. Anyone could plainly see that. She couldn’t imagine how anyone could think there was a leash on her master, though the Rowena witch _had_ called him the Winchesters’ bitch before. It was possible the witch was confused about what a dog looked like.

“I know what you thought,” her master replied. “And I know that you were wrong. I have Sam and Dean exactly where I want them. What do they say? Friends close, enemies closer.”

“Maybe they were enemies once. But now? Please. Do you even care that Dean Winchester mutilated your mother?!”

“Because you were stupid.”

Juliet buried her snout in her bed so she wouldn’t give herself away. Oh, how she had longed for her master to say something like that to the witch.

“Because I love you,” said the witch, false tears in her eyes.

Ignoring her words, Juliet’s master walked away and sat back down on his throne with his Scotch. Juliet approved. She wasn’t sure the witch loved anyone, and certainly not her master.

The Rowena witch tried a different approach, talking in that agitated way that involved voice, face, and hands together. “Well, if my suffering’s not enough, you know how much demons gossip. Right now word’s already spreading about all this. If you do nothing, you’ll look weak. Your subjects will start to doubt you, mock you. Then it’s just a matter of time before you have a revolt on your hands, before you lose your throne.”

Privately, Juliet thought that might not be such a bad thing. If her master lost his throne, then perhaps the two of them could leave. They could wander and do whatever they wanted, without _business_ interfering all the time.

“You’re playing a dangerous game.”

“And it’s your move. So you can’t kill Dean. Fine. Take him, throw him in some dank cell, let him rot. But _do something_! No more stalling.” She stepped closer. “No more excuses. Show them how strong you really are. _Be a bloody king_!”

Wait. She still wanted him to kill Dean? Did that mean the witch didn’t do it? But if she hadn’t, then how had she gotten away? Did she honestly expect Juliet’s master to kill Dean or lock him away? That would never happen.

Her master stared straight ahead and made a small sound like he had just thought of something. Then he set down his Scotch and disappeared.

No. He wouldn’t. Would he? Juliet was left to wonder. Her master seemed to have been thinking for himself, or else why would he have argued with the witch woman? But she told him to do a thing, he thought about it, and then he left. Had he gone to try to capture Dean?

The Rowena witch looked pleased with herself. She smiled and walked out of the room, head held high. Juliet rushed to follow her, falling into place a few paces behind, again, right where a guard ‘hound belonged so none would question her. She followed the witch down the hall and to her room. Unsure of her ability to remain undetected in the tiny room if the doors were closed, Juliet opted to remain just outside the door.

There were sounds of water filling what sounded like a wooden bowl, then something dipping into the water and dripping. A cloth? Then some time later, there was the rustle of cloth that was likely the witch changing her clothing. It was all terribly boring to listen to, but Juliet was a good dog and was determined to keep watch on the witch until her master returned.

And then, without warning, he did return, striding down the hall entirely undamaged. He stopped to pet her, giving a good scratch behind one ear, and said, “Good girl, Juliet. You did good.”

Then, far too soon, he pushed open the doors and entered the witch’s room. Juliet was hopeful, but didn’t want to hope too much only to be let down. She followed as far as the doorway and watched.

As soon as the doors opened, the Rowena witch — who had been seated in a once-destroyed and now-miraculously-restored chair — practically leapt to her feet and asked, “Is it done?”

Her master stopped a good pace or two away and replied, “ _We’re_ done. Get your things and get out.”

From behind him, Juliet dared to hope. It had been at least three forevers since magic/death/tea Rowena had first arrived, and after everything that had happened, it almost felt too easy.

Still smiling, the witch said, “You aren’t serious.”

“Deadly,” Juliet’s wonderful master replied.

The smile finally slipped off her face. “But I’m your _mother_.”

“You may have brought me into this world, but you were never my mother.”

“So you’re choosing the Winchesters.”

“I’m choosing _me_.”

The awful witch scoffed at his words. Juliet longed to deliver her soul to eternal torment, but she waited. She watched and listened while her master finally put a stop to the scheming and put the witch in her place. The Rowena witch trembled and cried and and threatened to burn Juliet’s master’s things, but he wasn’t bothered. Juliet was so proud of him for finally remembering how to be a demon.

On his way out the door, he paused and, without turning, said, “I’ll give you five minutes. After that, pray I don’t see you again.”

So Juliet wasn’t going to get to tear out the witch’s soul. She was disappointed, but she could deal with that if it meant things were going to go back to normal. As some consolation, she got to see magic/death/tea Rowena shaking like a soul newly strapped in for torment. Juliet chose to take it as a sign of the inevitable.

While her master walked away, Juliet stayed and watched the witch pack her bags. A short time later — probably the five minutes her master had promised — two demons walked down the hall to the door where Juliet waited. She was pleased to see the Emily demon had found a meatsuit more to her liking, a female with dark hair. The other demon was one whose name Juliet had never learned, but who she knew had a reputation for brutality. Thor shadowed them, obviously eager for another chance to prove himself.

She could have left the job to them, trusted them to get it done, but Juliet needed to watch the witch leave with her own two fiery eyes. She watched them escort the Rowena witch from the room, listened to her try to bargain with her guards and then threaten them, and finally watched them pull knives, threatening to skewer her if she didn’t leave immediately. It was incredibly satisfying.

Once the witch was out the front door with all of her belongings, Juliet raced back to the throne room. There sat her master on his throne, swirling Scotch in his glass and staring into its depths. No one else was in the room with him. He had probably sent them all away.

It hit her then. Her master had actually wanted the Rowena witch to care about him, but Juliet wasn’t sure the witch could care about anything. Her master was hurting and sad. Juliet knew just what to do. She finally stopped sneaking around the palace and raced headlong over to her master, putting both paws on his lap so she could properly lick his entire face. His true form was still sad, but for the moment he wasn’t thinking about it. It was alright. Juliet was going to fix everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the first time I've chosen to post a story chapter by chapter, so thank you to everyone who read along with it. I still don't know which method I like better, so if you have a favourite (if you'd rather read along week by week or if you'd prefer to wait until it's done and devour it in one) please let me know.
> 
> This story was a longer fic coming right on the heels of another longer fic. There were times near the end when the words didn't want to come and I wasn't sure when it'd get finished, but your comments kept me writing, so thank you.
> 
> I won't be writing more Juliet for awhile now. I'm working on the next installment of The Misadventures of Growley and Squirrel, and after that I've signed up for the Crowley Big Bang, so more Juliet likely won't happen for months now. But if you're craving more Juliet, she's the co-star in [Well Endowed](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11709525) which still has six chapters left to post.
> 
> Thank you all for sticking with my adorable murder beast and I hope you enjoyed the ride. As always, I hope you'll leave me comments and kudos, and if you'd like you can come find me on the Tumblz where I'm @thayerkerbasy


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